Everything one needs to know about foreign policy can be learned by watching the three-minute negotiation scene between the Rebel outlaw and the Comanche chief in the film “The Outlaw Josey Wales.”
Wales offers both life … and death … with utmost sincerity, and because the outlaw is willing to die in battle, the warrior chief Ten Bears believes he is willing to live in peace. And so they live together, in peace.
President Donald Trump’s similar stance with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may have yielded similar results.
Here’s why:
Trump’s strategy with Kim has been obvious: The president is willing to go to war and he’s willing to settle for peace. The choice is all up to Kim, and Trump is deadly serious about either option.
The North Koreans have enjoyed a familiar calculation with past American presidents: The regime behaves badly + the White House get scared = our president gives their Dear Leader whatever he wants.
But 1+2=3 doesn’t add up anymore. In fact, Trump has gone and changed the entire equation to a rather simple two-choice question. The North Korean regime can either have A) peace, or B) we can turn their country into the largest glass menagerie in the galaxy.
And like Josey Wales, our president ain’t bluffing … and maybe Kim knows it.
For those who aren’t familiar with the film (and if you’re a guy who hasn’t seen it, you may turn in your Man Card at the nearest gun range), here are the best lines:
Josey: You be Ten Bears?
Ten Bears: I am Ten Bears.
Josey: (spits tobacco) I’m Josey Wales.
Ten Bears: I have heard. You’re the Gray Rider. You would not make peace with the Blue Coats. You may go in peace.
Josey: I reckon not. Got nowhere to go.
Ten Bears: Then you will die.
Josey: I came here to die with you. Or live with you. Dying ain’t so hard for men like you and me, it’s living that’s hard; when all you ever cared about has been butchered or raped. Governments don’t live together, people live together. With governments you don’t always get a fair word or a fair fight. Well, I’ve come here to give you either one, or get either one from you. I came here like this so you’ll know my word of death is true. And that my word of life is then true. The bear lives here, the wolf, the antelope, the Comanche. And so will we. Now, we’ll only hunt what we need to live on, same as the Comanche does. And every spring when the grass turns green and the Comanche moves north, he can rest here in peace, butcher some of our cattle and jerk beef for the journey. The sign of the Comanche, that will be on our lodge. That’s my word of life.
Ten Bears: And your word of death?
Josey: It’s here in my pistols, there in your rifles. I’m here for either one.
Ten Bears: These things you say we will have, we already have.
Josey: That’s true. I ain’t promising you nothing extra. I’m just giving you life and you’re giving me life. And I’m saying that men can live together without butchering one another.
Ten Bears: It’s sad that governments are chiefed by the double-tongues. There is iron in your word of death for all Comanche to see. And so there is iron in your words of life. No signed paper can hold the iron, it must come from men. The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life … or death. It shall be life. (he takes his knife and cuts his hand. Josey does the same and they grasp each other’s hand.) So shall it be.”
Watch the awesome clip now:
https://youtu.be/q9EBYw5VN2E?t=25s
Exit question: Will Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un seal the pact by slicing their palms and mingling their blood? Never say never with this guy …
@jpepperbryars is the editor of Yellowhammer News and the author of American Warfighter
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